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Build a Business, Not a Hobby
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🔥 Are You Treating Your Business Like a Business… or a Hobby?
Most beauty entrepreneurs start their careers without a plan.
They graduate from beauty school, excited to build their dream, but quickly realize…
🚨 They were never taught how to run a business. 🚨
In this episode of Beauty & The Business, hosts Damon Rourke and Renee Leone break down:
✔️ The entrepreneurial mindset shift every beauty pro must make
✔️ Why treating your business like a hobby will keep you broke
✔️ How to stay consistent even when business is slow
✔️ Why building a personal brand matters—even if you work for someone else
✔️ The dangers of social media distraction & dopamine addiction
💡 The bottom line? You ARE the business. Your brand, mindset, and habits will determine your long-term success.
🎧 Listen Now!
📩 Download Your FREE Beauty Business Planner: www.beautyinthebusiness.vip
#BeautyEntrepreneur #SalonSuccess #BusinessGrowth #EntrepreneurMindset #BeautyPodcast
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Transcript
Introduction to Renee Leone's Journey
00:00:05
Speaker
Welcome to Beauty and the Business Podcast. I'm Renee Leone, a beauty entrepreneur, coach, and single mom who built a six-figure beauty business straight out of school. Now, I'm here to help you do the same.
00:00:17
Speaker
If you're ready to stop struggling and start scaling, you're in the right place. Let's turn your passion into profit. Hit play and let's build your beauty empire.
Mindset in Business for Beauty Professionals
00:00:32
Speaker
everybody. Welcome to Beauty and the Business. My name is Damon Rourke, joined by Rene Leon. And today we want to talk about being a business owner and really the mindset behind being a business owner.
00:00:46
Speaker
um yeah One of the reasons we started this was because we are both in the beauty industry. I'm in beauty sales and Renee is a salon suite owner and practitioner.
00:00:57
Speaker
And we were working with a lot of new people, a lot of new people fresh out of beauty school and realized that they don't actually teach business in beauty school. There is very little talk about how you build your business.
00:01:11
Speaker
This thing that you saved your money for, that you spent your money on, that you spent a lot of time um thinking about, and then spent a lot of time getting your degrees, getting your education.
Building a Business with Intentionality
00:01:21
Speaker
They don't actually teach you anything about building your actual business. It's like, okay, go forth now into the world. And that's why we started this. So ah we are very excited about, but very passionate about bringing this topic to to you guys.
00:01:36
Speaker
ah But that's why we started. And so it starts with recognizing that you are a business owner and you are building your business. And so you want to be very intentional with that. It's not something that's just going to happen by posting on social media a few times.
00:01:51
Speaker
It's going to be something that you have to focus on be very intentional with. Yes, 100%. And when I coach women, oftentimes I ask them, like, what do they want out of this? Like, do they want to make $100,000 in their first year? Do they want something that's just a side gig? Do they want just a little extra shopping money to provide for their family?
00:02:10
Speaker
But here's the deal. No matter what be the answer is, the steps are still the same. The steps are still the same.
00:02:21
Speaker
And... that is consistency is a big one. It doesn't matter when you're fresh out of school, you can have the biggest dreams and hopes of building your own salon someday or opening your own beauty school, whatever it may be, developing a product line, or maybe you just want to fill your books and work three days a week.
Balancing Work and Personal Life
00:02:40
Speaker
The steps are still the same. It's how long you continue the steps, how consistent you are, And how good you are at goal setting and planning. But you still have to do the same day-to-day tasks of balancing your life, balancing your business.
00:02:57
Speaker
We go over that in the course, the work-life balance myth. And the steps are still the same. So if you approach this like, oh, I'm just going to do a little bit of work.
00:03:11
Speaker
I'm just going to do a little bit of this. Odds are you're probably going to be done within six months. Yeah. The beginning steps are still the same. Developing a plan, getting goals set, having the right allocation of your time, understanding time and money, and doing the steps to ensure that you're bringing a business yourself.
00:03:31
Speaker
Yeah, we see a lot of new new business owners, they really treat their business like a hobby rather than actual business. And if you do that, it's going to pay you like a hobby. Treat your business like a hobby, it's going to pay you like a hobby.
00:03:42
Speaker
A hobby is something you only spend money on. A hobby is something that you only invest in time into. There is no real return. It's it's entertaining, right? it's something that you enjoy to do, but it's not necessarily your business.
Identity and Action in Entrepreneurship
00:03:55
Speaker
You treat your business like a business, right? And it's going to pay you like a business. And but specifically with being an entrepreneur, with having your own business, with being a a beauty professional, you are the business.
00:04:08
Speaker
but You are the business. you Your brain is the business. Your image is the business. Your brand is the business. But you are your business. And you know mindset is our first talking point. But number two is is how you manage yourself.
00:04:24
Speaker
but How do you manage the the tools that you have? How do you manage your talents? And a big part of that is managing where you're putting your attention because what you focus on will grow. Yeah, and you know, that kind of the importance of tracking also is pivotal in growing your beauty business.
00:04:40
Speaker
Because I can't tell you how many times that, you know, every beauty entrepreneur has ups and downs in their business. And we all tend to get really comfortable. Our books are busy. We're we're okay. We're good enough.
00:04:51
Speaker
Well, then maybe this person moves away and maybe this person gets sick and they can't afford it anymore. And before you know it, you're like, shoot, my business, I just lost five clients.
00:05:03
Speaker
Now got to play catch up again. Now you got it And by staying consistent in those steps, it's going to provide security for you. If you get so booked out that you can't take any more clientele and you want more for your life,
00:05:17
Speaker
That's when we sit down and we have a one-on-one conversation on the next steps and how you can raise your pricing. You can do all these different things to make sure that you are being rewarded for your consistent effort also.
00:05:29
Speaker
think, you know, a big piece with that is, is understanding like when, when you're the business, you guys just have to recognize that you're the business and, and,
00:05:40
Speaker
It just sounds funny. I mean, it sounds stupid, right? That's the way I'm saying it sounds stupid. You're the business. It's you know you're the You're the employee. You're the boss. You're the employee. If the employee shows up and the boss isn't there, it's going to be an easy day for the employee.
00:05:55
Speaker
But if the boss is there, if you be the most strict boss you ever had, you're going to be a very, very well-paid employee and happy employee. If you have a lax boss that doesn't show up, that has no plan, that has no dreams, that has no bigger vision, you're going to be you're only going to be employed for a short time because it's not going to work. And when you start when I start thinking about like what you bring to the table, it's your brain. like It's your skill set. You have to manage this.
00:06:23
Speaker
And Renee and I were just talking about this before we started recording of –
00:06:29
Speaker
dopamine hits dopamine hits how easy it is right now we have like free entertainment at our fingertips i think you know we're both around 40 years old and when we were younger we had to go play outside and like go make stuff you know and think we're like the last generation of that but now it's like oh you just wake up you go grab that ipad you start scrolling you've got content and like entertainment in your face you don't even have to use brain cells yeah anymore and there's a lot of research backing that your brain only allows a certain amount of dopamine
00:06:59
Speaker
the majority of Americans are hitting their max of dopamine before they even get out of bed.
Managing Digital Attention
00:07:05
Speaker
That's depressing. Literally. We put this course together that that really addresses priorities and addresses how you're spending your time and addresses social media and using social media as a tool to grow your business. But what really drove it home for me on this subject, when you think about these massive tech companies, but you really think about they are making billions of dollars. Oh, yeah.
00:07:27
Speaker
They are paying... incredibly, incredibly talented and smart geniuses, millions of dollars to go out there and get your attention.
00:07:39
Speaker
Yeah. To find out how to give you those dopamine hits because that's what we're up against. We're up against billion dollar companies that are are paying millionaire tech mercenaries to go get our attention and take that dopamine for from us before we even get out of bed.
00:07:56
Speaker
Yeah. And so when we talk about managing yourself, managing your brain, managing your attention, this all goes into it. This is going into the success of your business. And if we start realizing that this is the success of your business, like the future of your business depends on whether you're scrolling social media at at the first of the day or not.
00:08:12
Speaker
Right. And so. And it's easy to do. i um we We make a lot of content online. I try to interact a lot online. And I catch myself going from a creator to a consumer.
00:08:26
Speaker
And I want to do everything I can to stay in that creator mode. I want to be putting content out there. i don't want to be a consumer. I don't want to be just giving my my dopamine away for free um to these millionaire tech geniuses. Yeah, that's so true.
00:08:40
Speaker
Now, will say that when I am scrolling, I'm sitting there and, Damon, I'll send you things sometimes. I'm like sending to remember. I'm sure there's a more efficient way of doing that. But, you know, if it's an idea for a reel that I'm making on Beauty and the Business or something I want to remember for later to recreate for my own content, that's a great way. You don't have to always be like you have to be so original, yeah you know, in your content creation. And so there is a time and place, I say, but I would say just put a limit on it, you know, to when you're in and be intentional about it, being intentional about that time. And, you know, like, OK, I'm sitting down here and I'm going make these reels. going to make these this content or these posts.
00:09:18
Speaker
Like sometimes you do have to do a little market research and see what's trending and all that. But if that's all you're doing, and I think that's what a lot of ah young professionals do in this industry. Professionals, period.
00:09:30
Speaker
Yeah. A lot of people, period. Yeah. Then that that's about all you're going to get is online exposure. But we've really lost the art of in-person connection and showing up to the place that you work.
00:09:45
Speaker
Anyways, if there's other professionals there, meeting the clients that they have, developing relationships with them, attending you know school functions for your kids. and There's so much lost in the art of just in-person interaction.
00:09:59
Speaker
People will remember you if you introduce yourself, you make that connection, you act interested in them, and they may not need your service right this moment, yep but down the road they will.
00:10:11
Speaker
And I think that's, like I said, just to reiterate, It's a lost art that we need to get off the screen so much and stop did you like focusing on that and get down too real client business, real client interaction, old school networking.
00:10:26
Speaker
Yeah. When we started working with beauty professionals, I think one
Importance of Offline Networking
00:10:29
Speaker
of the coolest things that's available to you is you're going to be a part of the community. Like you can't be a beauty professional performing services online. Yeah.
00:10:41
Speaker
but Like you can't do it. And I come from a world for the past 14 years, I sell a product online internationally. Like right now, 10 different countries, I have salespeople that are selling stuff on my team.
00:10:55
Speaker
But you can't do that, right? That's not the business that you're in And so you have to recognize, I think that 10 years ago, 10-ish years ago, 15 years ago, you would have been using social media maybe, but the majority of your content your clients came from word of mouth. The majority of your clients were coming from you being out in the world and being a part of your community. You go to the same coffee shop every time. You go to different places for lunch. You interact with the wait staff. You interact with the people that are there. Everybody in your community is a potential client of yours.
00:11:26
Speaker
Oh yeah. And so the more people you talk to, the better service you provide, and the better image you present out there, the better brand you present out there, the more referrals you're going to get. And so getting out there and being a part of the community, like Renee's talking about, is just, it's invaluable to you and you cannot live. like You're going to have friends that work for somebody else.
00:11:45
Speaker
You're going to have friends that have corporate jobs. They get paid no matter what. When they get to work, they can check Instagram. but When they get to work, they can check Facebook. They can check TikTok. They can check everything.
00:11:56
Speaker
And they're still getting a paycheck because they're doing their job. If you do that, you're not out building your business. You have to recognize that you are different. You are special. You have to go out and be a part of your community and interact with people. And when you're not doing that, when you're on social media, it's only to create content content and interact with people that are in your community.
00:12:17
Speaker
I think it's one of the most unique, incredible things is that you're building a local business and you can utilize social media to do it. Well, and I also feel that, you know, we might be talking to a lot of girls that are in commissionable based salons where they feel like it might not be their responsibility yeah to go network and market. And maybe that's why they chose that. And I commend you for that. If that's what fits your time, your budget, your whatever, um there's no shame in that game.
00:12:42
Speaker
However, you never know where life's going to take you. And we talk about this in the course about establishing your brand, no matter which type of business that your beauty business you're running. So you can take that brand everywhere with you.
00:12:53
Speaker
If, you know, you get let go or that salon shuts down or you decide, okay, I want to have kids and i want to make my own hours. Doing this from the beginning is going to be one of the most valuable things that you can do for your business long-term.
00:13:07
Speaker
And you may not be ah business owner. You may be a W-2 employee, but the the the rules apply to you also. Renee, when you say it's a commissional based salon.
00:13:18
Speaker
Yes. So, If you walk into a super cuts or something like that, like you just have a barbershop, those girls typically are paid hourly and they make majority on tips or a nail salon. You know, they, they get paid hourly and they make majority on tips.
00:13:31
Speaker
Then there's the chair rental service where you can rent a chair and you, um, sometimes that includes some product that you might be able to use. And then there's suite rentals, which is what my building is set up like where I rent suites to women to where they're more independent. They're, they're responsible for their own,
00:13:48
Speaker
their own business yeah each woman in this building of mine owns their own business they have their own llcs they have their own business accounts we are all just under the roof of ava j yeah and i set it up like that intentionally but um so the commissionable based girls sometimes they feel like well i clock in and I get paid to do this, but you're still your brand. You're still building. You're still, you never know where life's going to take you.
00:14:16
Speaker
And if you get let go from that place and you're, how are your clients going to find you? Do you have personal connections with them? Do you have them follow you on social media? Never leave your client up to you know, your boss. yeah I don't leave them under that umbrella and expect them to be able to find you.
00:14:37
Speaker
Um, if you transition somewhere else. Yeah. we we When we cross the numbers, when we're doing our course, it's 80% of salons go out of business in the first 18 months. Yeah. That's a crazy number.
00:14:48
Speaker
It's a lot of overhead that um people don't account for. it Yeah. ye But for the actual beauty professional, when you go to a salon, if it's a small salon and it's a slow salon,
00:15:01
Speaker
you know, there's only a 20, 25% chance it's going to be around in a year and a half. That's nothing, right? That is nothing. You're just getting your business going.
Business Development for Commission-Based Roles
00:15:09
Speaker
And so even if you're in a commissionable salon in and you have, when you have downtime, you should be building your business still.
00:15:17
Speaker
You should be following, or I'm sorry, you should be sharing stuff online. You should be creating videos if you can create videos videos in that in that scenario. But um you want to use that downtime if you want more. If you don't want more,
00:15:29
Speaker
Don't take any of this advice and just keep showing up to work. um And that's fine, right? That's the, we're here to support you to The, the beauty in the business community will support you as well. You'll get a lot of our community come join it. But guys, if you want more, you have to work for it.
00:15:44
Speaker
You have to sacrifice for it. And you have to recognize that there's a difference between sitting down, getting on your phone, waiting for somebody to walk through the door and going and actually being proactive and building your business for the longterm, right? There's a difference.
00:16:02
Speaker
And so I think that's really important that that we just recognize. And, you know, it it's important that we recognize it. It's important that you guys hear this here now um because when you go there, wherever you go, you might be joining a culture to where they don't do that.
00:16:18
Speaker
You're joining a culture to where they just sit in the chair and and scroll around on their phone waiting for people to walk in the door and collect a you know collect an hourly wage and they and they get that they get that they they get the tip that comes in.
00:16:30
Speaker
But because you have to you have to recognize that if you want more, you're going to have to break away from the patterns. If you want more, um you determine how much more you're worth.
Join the Beauty in the Business Community
00:16:43
Speaker
And so guys, thank you for tuning in. We will see you on the next episode of the podcast. Hey, everybody. If you like what you heard today, join us over at beautyinthebusiness.vip.
00:16:57
Speaker
Again, that's www.beautyinthebusiness.vip. That's where we have our courses. That's where we have our community group. And we look forward to interacting with you over there. beautyinthebusiness.vip. We will see you on the next episode.